is legs trembling under him, and crept to the
window, peering out cautiously. Only when he had seen the party leave
the house upon skis and webs did he go back to his bed, snatch a bit of
plug cut chewing tobacco out from under his pillow and hurl it
venemously into the snow.

"A man that will chew that stuff for fun," he groaned creeping back
into bed, "ain't safe to have around. Good God, I wonder if I am
dying? I might have took too much!"

* * * * * *

Thus it happened that almost at the very beginning of the hard winter
Wayne Shandon was a hunted man, forewarned that his hunters would spare
neither unsleeping vigilance nor expense to secure his arrest and
conviction. During the first night and the first day he never went far
from the Bar L-M range house. From behind a screen of timber less than
a quarter of a mile from his pursuers he had watched them turn back
towards the Echo Creek. The darkness was already dimming the landscape
but he could count the figures, five of them, with the horse Wanda had
insisted that MacKelvey bring out with them. As they went toward the
bridge he came down toward them, moving swiftly among the trees,
keeping well out of sight.

He knew he would be doing the thing upon which MacKelvey would not
count. Besides it was sheer madness to think of spending the night
without shelter of any kind and he did not dare go immediately to
Wanda's cave. Already he had come to think of that place, high above
the treetops and as safely hidden as if it were below the earth's
surface, as a place of refuge. If he went there now they would track
him to-morrow--unless it snowed. He must wait somewhere until the snow
came to wipe out the track he would leave behind him.

He entered the house by the back door, got his rifle and a belt of
cartridges, made into a compact pack such blankets, tobacco, coffee,
sugar, salt and condensed foods as he could carry. The cave was
already well stocked but he could not guess now how long he must lie
hidden there. He had no time to decide upon the course ahead of him
beyond the immediate future. He knew only that he must not let them
take him until he had done the work he would be unable to do from the
inside of a jail. He was preparing carefully for such needs as he
could foresee.

He slept that night in his own bed, waking at each little noise, ready
to spring up fully dressed and armed, prepared equally for defence or